Reading Time: 8 minutesThis website focused on beautiful yachts has been around for a while. Occasionally, I am asked what kind of boat I am sailing. So allow me to introduce Gamle Swede: Daysailer, cruiser, occasional racer, floating retreat and boat office. Gamle Swede was the reason, I started to focus on classics like Skerry Cruisers in the early 1990s as a professional …
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis 68 footer was developed by Håkan Södergren in 2008 as a taller sister of Swede 55. A first sight it is the same boat just bigger due the sailor saying. Actually, Swede 68 is 15 feet (4,60 m) longer, nearly three feet (80 cm) wider and designed with a raised freeboard. This would offer more room below deck. Swede …
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe story of this Swede 55 successor reveals, what can done with a tiller steered 52-footer, taking part in regattas on the south and west coasts of England, the Fastnet Race or on the Côte d’Azur. It is helmed like a dinghy with a tiller extension instead of a wheel. Almost all the crew is sitting on the high edge. …
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis is the story of a well-travelled, then long decommissioned Swede 55. Follow her wake from Fisksätra Varv in Västervik in Sweden to the island of Guernsey, where her first German owner sold her. She continued on via southern France to Antigua, in American and British ownership, several times across the Atlantic, to Norway and finally to Southampton. There, her …
Reading Time: 2 minutesAll data of Swede 55 obtained from brochures and own measurements aboard Gamle Swede: hull dimensions, weight, rig dimensions, nominal sail area and actual sail sizes. Cabin heights, tank capacities, engine and transmission, various international ratings/racing certificates. This information has been compiled from Gamle Swede and other Swede 55 over the past decades. This is just a fraction of what …
Reading Time: 5 minutesThis type is the successor to the second version S30 cruising Square Metre Boat and was built in 1995/96 with a boxy and comfortable superstructure. Further, there is a flush deck version with a low profile cabin named Swede 41 Classic. Swede 41 construction # 4 The sailing characteristics of Swede 41 have been improved impressively, with deeper keel and …
Reading Time: 6 minutesA while ago Richard Natmeßnig invited me for an afternoon aboard his Swede 41 Classic named Sleipnir. Having spent three unforgettable hours at the tiller of his boat on Fehmarnsund, I vividly remember this tempting experience. Swede 41 Classic with a lot of sail area Interested in sailing and familiar with Square Metre Boats, I found two observations irritating. First, …
Reading Time: 6 minutesThe Square Metre Boat cruising variant Swede 55 is delighting sailors all around the globe. Although series production ended in 1979, with Gamle Swede as hull number 27 launched by Fisksätra Varv, 18 more boats followed. One of them, technically and in terms of sailing the most interesting, is Cheyenne. Göran Lindgren got his dream boat for the Stockholm archipelago. …
Reading Time: 4 minutesIn the 1970s, admirers of the beautiful Johan Anker keelboat Dragon, the classy 30 Square Metre Boat, the Swiss Lacustre or the Folkboat had a problem. A wooden boat needs a lot of attention, time and skilled craftsmanship. And it is expensive to build new. That’s why they have been built in plastic ever since. At the end of the …
Reading Time: 6 minutesAn overlooked and notoriously underestimated topic is the weight of the boat. How heavy and thus under-rigged is it? Will it sail in light winds at all? And how much extra load, provisions, and luggage can it handle? Five examples. Cement mixer or sailboat? Today, cruising boats are considered as floating weekend condominiums. Everything we know from a cosy home …
